Category: From Saffron – The Insider Magazine

Dhurander The Revenge

Returning from the pictures in that curious condition of mind that combines bewilderment with the vague, albeit satisfying, feeling that one has not entirely wasted one’s time and has, rather, got one’s money’s worth, I hailed Jeeves for a spot of the old tea to restore frazzled tissues that had taken a bit of a beating for the preceding four hours.

“Might I suggest chamomile?” said Jeeves.

“You may, Jeeves, you may,” I said, settling into the nearest armchair with the air of a man who has survived a railway buffet luncheon and lived to tell the tale. “Extraordinary affair, this Dhurander: The Revenge thingummy. I haven’t been so shaken since Aunt Agatha discovered me hiding under the billiard table after accidentally setting fire to one of her sermons.”

“Indeed, sir,” said Jeeves, returning with a pot of the healing brew and handing me a cup even before I had quite realized he’d been gone.

“The thing concerns a fellow called Dhurander, or Hamzi, or Jassi, I am really not quite sure which, who has, apparently dedicated his life to avenging something or other. The details were a trifle confusing due, possibly, to the fact that every few minutes something or the other exploded and bits of buildings, cars and body parts flew about, like starlings in murmuration.”

“A regrettably distracting circumstance, sir.”

“Quite. The plot, Jeeves, if one may employ the term in the broad and charitable spirit in which one speaks of a maiden aunt’s singing voice being ‘mellifluous’, has this fellow Dhurander insinuating himself into the company and confidence of his enemies and then wreaking chaos and anarchy from within for the next three-and-a-half hours, with the restraint of a hungry rhinoceros discovering on awakening from a blissful sleep that someone has hidden his breakfast.”

“A most natural response, perhaps, from the protagonist’s point of view, sir.”

“Exactly. The chap goes about the place smashing villains with the single-minded intensity of Aunt Agatha pursuing me with a list of eligible young women. There is no stopping him. Bullets miss him. Motorcars and trucks fly about like startled pheasants. Buildings collapse with the frequency with which Bingo Little becomes engaged.”

“Mr. Little has always possessed a romantic temperament, sir.”

“He has indeed. Speaking of Bingo, I ran into the old ass at the Drones afterwards and mentioned the picture. Apparently, the chappie has gone and seen it, too, persuaded, no doubt by the Indian lady he met at an Embassy tea party recently and has been trying to get on the better side of ever since. He said it reminded him – the film, not the Indian lady – of the time Rosie M caught him writing sonnets to another girl and pursued him with a riding crop.”

“A painful recollection, no doubt, sir.”

“Painful? The man still twitches at the sight of equestrian equipment. But, he did agree that, contrary to his own tendency to wilt under the slightest threat of a crop in a flighty lady’s grasp, Dhurander shows remarkable sangfroid under the most intense of pressures.”

“I gather the protagonist remains composed through all his trials and tribulations?”

“Composed, Jeeves? The fellow is as calm in the midst of an explosion as Gussie Fink-Nottle examining a newt at close quarters At one point he drives a truck through three warehouses and emerges with his hair scarcely disturbed. I have seen less self-possession in Anatole when informed that luncheon would be delayed.”

“Anatole places considerable importance on punctuality, sir.”

“And rightly. Nobody should trifle with a great chef. But the villains, Jeeves! Dashed sinister coves. One, especially. Great hulking blighter with a golden tooth and a laugh like Roderick Spode attempting to sing bass in church. Every time he appears, he glares in a manner that would curdle fresh cream.”

“A useful talent, sir, in certain branches of the dairy industry.”

“Quite. And his laugh! Froze my blood, it did. The sort of laugh that causes dogs to bay at the moon and infants to reconsider their plans to grow up! Yet, one had to admire the fellow’s stamina. He spends half the film threatening Dhurander and the other half being hurled through windows of increasing heights.”

“A somewhat repetitive existence, sir.”

“Exactly. You can say that again, Jeeves.

“That would be repetitive, sir”

“I see what you mean. And then there are the emotional scenes. Great Scott! Everybody looks as though they’ve just received a telegram informing them that civilisation is about to end and that, in the circumstances, luncheon would be delayed. Mothers weep, brothers brood, sweethearts gaze soulfully into the middle distance like cows contemplating philosophy.”

“The dramatic arts often demand a certain intensity, sir.”

“Intensity, Jeeves? These people don’t converse. They proclaim. A chap asks for a glass of water as though announcing the fall of the Roman Empire. Every sentence lands with the weight and solemnity of a bishop blessing a battleship.”

“The score, I understand, is similarly unrestrained, sir?”

“Unrestrained! Ha! My dear fellow, whenever Dhurander appears, the orchestra bursts forth with such enthusiasm that one half expects the trombones to leap into the stalls and demand an encore. The music follows him around with the same intensity and relentlessness that Aunt Agatha exhibits pursuing a discussion on matrimony, mine, more often than not.”

“And did the audience respond favourably, sir?”

“Favourably? Dear fellow, they lapped it up. Roared with delight each time a skulking villain got his comeuppance. Cheered. Applauded. Demanded re-runs especially when the main villain was served his just desserts in the most explosive of manners. The script might meander, the logic occasionally disappear, the nationalism attain extreme heights but, if I may confess, Dhurander: The Revenge is capital fun.”

“Would you say, then, that the film has your approbation, sir?”

“The narrative, Jeeves, resembles one of those railway maps, where several lines have become entangled after being sat upon by a large, wet golden retriever. Flashbacks arrive unexpectedly, revelations spring out from behind bushes, and long-lost relations materialize with such frequency that one starts to examine the audience for possible cousins. Yet, the film possesses a sort of magnificent insanity. Like a chap attempting to play Beethoven on the bagpipes while riding a camel. One admires the spirit even while questioning the concept.”

“And, your final verdict, sir?”

“My verdict, Jeeves, is that Dhurander: The Revenge is not so much watched, as endured. With affection. It is loud, absurd, overcooked and entirely devoid of modesty. But, if one enters the theatre prepared to suspend disbelief, judgment and several basic principles of physics, one may emerge thoroughly entertained and oddly cheerful.”

“Very good, sir.”

Given the melancholia that Scots were said to be prone to in the 1700s, no doubt a consequence of the frequent wars they found themselves engaged in, the unrelenting and unforgiving natural elements they had to do battle with when they weren’t fighting the Brits and the brutally majestic, obsessive and monomaniacal presence all year round of the Scottish Highlands (described by an expert on all things Scottish as “that region where common sense no longer prevails and the Celtic imagination is all”), the poet Robert Burns probably struck the right chord when, in 1788, he wrote Auld Lang Syne (loosely translated to mean “the times gone by”) making a strong appeal to not forget old acquaintances and raise a cup of kindness (loosely translated to mean “pour me another”) to old relationships even as Time marched relentlessly on.

Though, from the evidence available, Robert Burns never intended his work to act as a farewell to the old year, its call for the preservation of our oldest and dearest relationships – perhaps best observed in the reflective quality of New Year’s Eve itself when, if we are lucky, we are in the company of close friends and family – seems to have found such universal resonance that it is still doing the rounds after 230 years and has become an absolute tradition in all New Year’s Eve celebrations, the opening lines from it (because that’s about all that most people can usually remember) a must-do at the stroke of midnight before all kinds of other silliness kick in, like inebriated people of advanced years in conical hats blowing whistles at each other or clumsily stumbling around in search of the next pair of lips to slobber on in what has suddenly become a very bright room with the houselights full on.

Nor is Auld Lang Syne a tradition and prerogative of the English-speaking world for which Burns originally intended it; it has global significance, too, its tune, if not the words, used, I am told, by Maldives and Korea (probably when still in its undivided form) for their national anthems, which, if true, would have both anthems sounding much the same – a bit of a bother if both countries were to be facing each other at, say, a world football event – and Japanese stores have been known to play it as a polite reminder for customers to leave as closing time approaches. And, though intrinsically linked to the end of a year and the beginning of a new one, Auld Lang Syne, being essentially a call for remembering old relationships and acquaintances, finds relevance at other occasions too, although those may not have the same celebratory quality – funerals, for example – which is the interpretation of Auld Lang Syne that I’d be inclined to offer for 2016, a year that, for me, is best forgotten because to remember it would be for the worst reasons.

The bright spot is that by the time you read this piece, it would be over and, despite the grogginess of mind and tiredness of limbs that many of us might be experiencing after a night of Bacchanalian excess that good sense warned against but the madness that afflicts us in party season vetoed, 2017 seems to hold the promise of new beginnings and unexpected surprises (hopefully, of the good kind) having, to start with, an unstructured, asymmetrical, off-kilter air about it, quite the opposite of the regimented, squared-up, confining look that 2016 had, an Apple to an IBM, if you will (and look what happened there!).

If the lessons of that face-off were to be juxtaposed on the New Year (and there are really no rational reasons to justify why they should be), I am hopeful of a less intolerant, dogma-driven, myopic, isolationistic and fundamentalist world where free-thinking, open-mindedness, forbearance and inclusiveness will not suffer ignominy on Facebook and Twitter, or at the polls, where forcibly playing the national anthem at the beginning of every cinema show and getting people to stand for it will not be construed as nation building and the pinnacle of patriotism, where the eating habits of people with different religious persuasions will not be interfered with, where single working women will not be seen as prime bait for any predatory male or social misfit, where governments will do what they are meant to do – govern, not meddle in peoples’ lives and presume to be their moral guardians – where Police will police, not become lackeys of the ruling political party and do its every bidding, including jailing someone for caricaturizing a sitting minister on Facebook and where iPhone 8 will be as much of a game changer as the first iPhone was 10 years ago.

Happy 2017, all, and don’t pine for Auld Lang Sine.

Returning to the narrative begun some days ago, there we were, then, travellers in search of Culinary Paradise or, at least, Paradise as we remembered it, our faltering enthusiasm at seeing how much of that heaven had been eroded by the exigencies of modernity and the new-fangled marketing notions of subsequent generations of owners momentarily revived by the invitation to the first floor, air-conditioned annexe. As the fat man from behind the cash counter, wearing a checked shirt - missing a button at a belly of magnificent proportions - a smarmy smile and a fawning disposition was insistent upon telling us repeatedly, we’d be much more comfortable in the room upstairs, less disturbed by the constant to-ing and fro-ing of a clientele of lower repute (or, as he probably meant, lesser means). 

      A spiral staircase that would have challenged the fitness of the finest athlete and navigational capabilities of the most refined global positioning system took us to a room that, after the neon-lit blaze of the main dining area, seemed entirely engulfed in shadow, the ceiling at a height that had even the shortest among us stooping. It didn't need an IQ of stratospherical proportions to determine that the first floor was not a floor at all but a mezzanine construction, in all likelihood, unauthorized, though we had to concede that the air conditioning was more than perfect even if the lighting wasn’t. Running the risk of a particularly painful form of spondylosis the longer we stood around with our necks bent in supplication mode, as if offered up for decapitation by guillotine, we hurriedly seated ourselves the best we could, unfazed by joined tables of uneven height, concrete pillars that had no business being where they were and a tablecloth of uncertain colour and dubious cleanliness that a waiter of similar traits whisked out of nowhere like a vaudeville magician and covered our tables with, almost simultaneous with his placement of four faux leatherbound menu cards, which, though wrinkled and stained with abuse, he positioned with symmetric precision and loving care. Having already visually sampled the fare on offer and decided on reliving our memories exactly as we’d first created them, we had no use for menu cards however ornate and voluminous, for it was predetermined, nay, preordained, that the sole purpose of this culinary voyage was to revisit Chacha’s famous fowl cutlets - the very same over which many years ago, accompanied by frequent refills of masala tea, some of us had debated politics, others cinema, some existentialism, others ennui, some love, others angst, but all united in the belief that the best of life lay ahead of us if Chacha’s culinary expertise, manifest in the cutlets that carried his name, were anything to go by, although none of us could say with full certainty whether anyone called Chacha actually existed and if it all wasn’t just a potent marketing idea ahead of its time.
      
     Suffice it to say, that day, at New Chacha's Hotel, one of the more treasured memories of our college days died and, with its passing, was buried our collective intent to rediscover and retrace the culinary trail of our youth. Chacha’s legendary fowl cutlets, when they arrived, borne as far aloft as the confines of a low ceiling permitted by a waiter with a most unfortunate choice of sartorial style and a completely misplaced sense of joi de vivre, were, in a word, foul, bereft of the ability to trigger anything but remorse and regret, empirical evidence, if empirical evidence were needed, that memories are best left where they are.
 
    And if there is a learning, it is this: that a memory, good or bad, isn’t comprised of just one thing even though we tend to recall it that way - as a single, overwhelming experience; in truth, it has perspective, context and relevance, either to a specific time or a specific state of being; its strength and durability lies in its ability to trigger a veritable videostream of events, peoples, places, thoughts and feelings each time it is recalled and when it can no longer do that, it ceases to be a memory.